Plain Jane, Isle of Thanet Gazette 07 June 2013: Council double-speak hides another waste of money

And now I AM on the new website… hurrah! But here is my latest Plain Jane for those who’ve got used to reading it here… And Happy Friday!

(And greetings from Brighton, where, my friends, there has been SUN! And  HOT weather.  Was quite a shock to the system when I arrived….)

Council double-speak hides another waste of money

ADVICE: Tracey Emin says where art goes, regeneration follows. Thanet council would do well to listen

I AM sure you will be delighted to learn that Thanet District Council is carrying out a “targeted consultation with identified stakeholders within the business community, statutory organisations and key representatives from the voluntary and community sector” to ensure that their “draft action plan” setting out how the council “will deliver its regeneration priorities in partnership with other public sector organisations, the private and third sectors over the next ten years” fully reflects the “views of the people and organisations that will help to deliver it”.

This is part of the council’s new “Economic Growth and Regeneration Strategy” and will provide feedback on the “draft action plan” which is split into five areas to “reflect the priorities of the overall strategy” which will help shape the “final action plan” to be approved by the Cabinet at some date in the future.

Would you like me to translate?

What all this guff means is that yet again a lot of hot air is about to be expended on what can be done to give Thanet a kick up the jacksie.

You can view the finer details online if you’re a bit bored and tired of watching paint dry.

But we’re basically talking (I quote) Business Growth; Investing in Assets; Green Economy (whatever that will actually mean); Heritage, Culture and Visitor Economy (tourism to you and me) and Skills for Employment and Growth.

In other words, what they can do to boost the day-tripper numbers so that the whole area gets a bit more dosh spent in it and this has a good knock-on effect.

Far be it from me, a humble hack, to know anything – I lost the will to live even looking for said plan on the TDC website – but haven’t we been here before? Instead of more “consultations” (at a cost of I-dread-to-think) why not hire a decent PR company to spread the news of the joys of Thanet across the national media, or take the cheaper option and get some of the council’s many admin workers to have a go at writing such press releases themselves.

A tip for whoever wrote this one: simple words work well too…

SPEAKING of the joys of the island, how nice to see an exhibition devoted to its more pleasing corners. Scottish-born, Dutch-resident-but-confirmed-Thanet-devotee, Paul Ellis’s Coast to Coast held in the Harbour Arm Gallery in Margate, has sadly just closed, but do check out his website http://www.paulellis.nl for paintings of places you’ll recognise.

To quote Tracey Emin: “Wherever art goes, regeneration follows.” Promote the artistic endeavours TDC and the rest may take care of itself…

THANK you for all the breakfast suggestions that have come in following my last column.

These have included Angela’s Cafe in Margate, the brunch at the Churchill Tavern in Ramsgate, Quex Barn, Dalby Cafe, Yama’s Thai Cafe, Picnic Pantry Cafe and Wyatt & Jones. My son is poised for a full comparison study – I will try to waddle my way round them all in due course.

AND while I am on best breakfasts, I am also inviting nominations for worst evening fare.

Can you beat this?

There is a place in Thanet that belies the rumour that the Brits are becoming more discerning restaurant-wise.

Imagine tired décor and the air thick with  eau-de-la chip-pan.

Grudging service that is added to the bill. An Italian slant to the menu but no parmesan cheese or pepper grinder. Faces pulled when one enquires.

French fries served with pasta.

No ice-cream, no cheese, no credit cards taken.

Well it won’t last, I hear you cry. Sadly, it’s been going 25 years…

Plain Jane, Isle of Thanet Gazette, 24th May 2013: The Big Thanet Breakfast

The Isle of Thanet Gazette has a new website ( www.thanetgazette.co.uk) but it’s not yet sporting my latest column. So, for the strong-stomached, you saw it here first. Yes, he really ate the below…

Tom tucks in – photo by his slightly-revolted mother

Like most mothers, I suffer my areas of guilt. I didn’t do enough sticking and gluing, actively encouraged long hours in front of the video machine when deadlines loomed, and was too often to be found staring at a computer, waving a vague arm and saying shhh, when I should have been holding up flash cards or steaming off to violin lessons and Kumon maths. But on the matter of my handling of the offspring’s food intake, I am unrepentant. I was a “fussy eater” as a child and the anxiety it caused me, lasted years. (The mere phrase “School Dinners”  still leaves me in need of a lie-down.)

So when I gave birth to another picky consumer, I was determined to accommodate. So what, if he had marmite pasta when others ate meat and two veg? Who cared if crisps were high on the menu – they were only potatoes and sunflower oil – or anything green was anathema? I took the view that contentment came before cabbage, that no child had died from chicken nuggets overload and that if they came with a vitamin pill, biscuits could make breakfast. And – above all – that time would sort my son’s eating habits as, eventually, it sorted mine.

As you might imagine, I was not without my critics – rod-for-your-own-back-blah-blah / five-portions-a day-or-may-you-burn-in-hell etc – but vindication has been sweet. The boy has still grown tall and strong, has only the one head, has passed exams, rarely been to the doctor’s and now eats most things. In fact, after a recent flurry of mother-and-son bonding breakfasts, I would say he has a stomach of iron. On the loose excuse that he is busy revising and needs lots of fortification and that I am researching a guide to weight control (apparently if you eat two eggs when you get up, you will consume four hundred fewer calories later), we have been perusing the Isle’s early-morning establishments in search of the perfect start to the day.

As one who tends to judge an eatery by  the quality of its bread, the standard of the wine list and whether the loo is nice, I might have set criteria like whether the cups were pretty, the butter well churned and the coffee real, but I have been quickly put right. Quantity is right up there with quality on this mission.  While I am primly searching the board for egg on hand-cut granary, he is scanning the jumbo double bacon options and working out how many extra sausages he can get. His current favourite is the ultra-friendly Café Kussan on Northdown Road where “the big one” includes chips as well.

We have also worked our way through the Olympia Café (Ethelbert Crescent, Margate): good toast and a size of fry-up that has to be seen – we are talking THREE eggs, THREE sausages, and yes he did eat it all; Forts (Cliff Terrace, Margate), exotic scrambled egg options and a good selection of teas (all a bit delicate for the boy) and the Harbour Café (Harbour Street, Broadstairs) – delightfully seasidey, with a lovely view of the beach. I have also made a break-out trip to the Royal Harbour Brasserie, where I had a delicious duck egg and shrimps (this does not appeal to the bacon-muncher). We are venturing into more of Ramsgate next.

If you have any recommendations for Jones and Son on our tireless quest to review the Big Thanet Breakfast, please let me know. I like the tables to be clean and the mugs unchipped. He’ll eat anything…

We have a winner!!!!

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition. Judged by Janie Millman, Morgen Bailey (and me).

….  It was very, very difficult to choose. We wrangled and debated but finally in the end, we came to a decision. All five were terrific and in recognition of this, Mike and Janie of Chez-Castillon have been incredibly generous (thank you Janie and Mike!) and offered FOUR runner-up prizes of a £100 voucher to be used towards any of their fabulous courses. These go to:

Karen Booth for “The Regulating Waist Plan”

Jane Lovering for “Bum’s Away”

Cathy Lennon for “Acquire a Labrador”

Tony Tibbenham for “Roll Six for Chocolate”

But the winner is … drum roll… etc…

CLARE MACKINTOSH for her ingenious poem!

Clare Mackintosh

Janie Millman, judge and co-owner of Chez Castillon, who had this one down as a firm favourite from the start, describes it as “witty and unique” saying: “It shows a great sense of humour. I really do think it’s clever – I like the way she has managed to  mention Chekhov and Shakespeare…” Adding “and I have always love standing on my head.”

So Hurrah for Clare and our brilliant runners-up and a round of applause to all on the long list and a huge thank you to everyone who entered. I am hoping some of you will agree to your tips (and you!) appearing in the print version of 100 Ways to Fight the Flab which is coming out at Christmas (Better get on and write it then, hadn’t you? Ed).

Clare wins six nights at the amazingly gorgeous Chez Castillon in September (avec moi).

and I am hoping she will give me permission to reproduce her poem in the book too.

In the meantime, your weekly Flab Fighting tips from me will resume next Sunday and for a hundred of the buggers all at once see the kindle book, available here for a mere 77p (what a bargain).

Thanks everyone. And Happy Flab Fighting

janexx

Here – for your delight and delectation – is the poem again….

The upside-down diet tip: a poem by Clare Mackintosh

I was trim, I was slim,I attended a gym, Then I left work to become a writer. Now I scoff, and I trough (and I’m still no Chekhov). It’s no shock that I’m getting no lighter. I’m game for a change, I can’t stay the same, And I’ve hit on the perfect idea, It’ll win, I’ll be thin, I’ll have only one chin, A skinnier version of Shakespeare. So what is the plot? It won’t take a lot, I shall stand on my head when I’m eating. When I chew on my stew, without further ado It’ll stay in my head (that’s the cheating). Begone, Deli jelly! Don’t enter my belly, Go right up and hand-feed my brain. All that bread can instead go direct to my head, With an order of chicken chow mein. I shall shrink, I shall slink, I’ll be able to think, With such nutrients feeding my mind. I shall write, I shall fight, I won’t ever turn upright, In my quest for a tiny behind. The End. p.s. Don’t try this at home.

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition – Top 5

Following on from last weekend’s Top 12, we are pleased to announce the creators of the Top 5 Flab-fighting tips, complete with the tips themselves, again in author surname alphabetical order. We’d love to have your feedback. Please do comment!

Karen Booth – The Regulating Waistband Plan

Sort the contents of your wardrobe into two piles – one a size or two smaller than your real size, the other one or two sizes bigger than you really need (this shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who can relate to yo-yo dieting who’s likely to have a range of sizes in their wardrobe for fat and thin stages). The idea is to wear the smaller sizes whenever you’re at home or working alone – anytime you’re going to come across few people. You’ll find it difficult stuffing yourself when your waistband’s cutting you in two, you’re likely to feel full quicker and the rolls and muffin tops you see every time you pass a mirror will be a candid reminder of the need to watch what you eat!When it comes to socialising and being in company, it’s time to choose from the ‘two sizes bigger’ outfits and revel in the compliments when your friends ask if you’ve lost weight – well surely you must have done, your clothes are hanging off you! This method also works well with the ‘fast and feed’ plan, wearing your tight clothes on fast days will leave you feeling like you’ve troughed your way through a five course meal (well alright, you might also need to use a little imagination!) whereas your bigger outfits on a feed day will allow you to feel comfortable eating what you like – just don’t overdo it and end up filling your ‘big’ pants!

Cathy Lennon – Acquire a Labrador

The canine equivalent of the fat bridesmaid in lemon taffeta on your wedding photos, a Labrador will do comparative wonders for your silhouette. But he’s a practical help as well. You can get rid of those kitchen scales – when it comes to portion control, what he can demolish in thirty seconds makes the contents of your plate seem positively dainty. Even better, your chances of finishing anything are slim. Without a lifebelt and wellies you’ll have to hand over at least half of what you’re eating or risk drowning in a drool tsunami. Even cucumber and apple cores. And quinoa. (See! Helpful or what?)Not only can the Labrador deploy the Vulcan death stare to Oscar-winning standard when you’re trying to eat, he will offer you the same ‘aid to willpower’ when it comes to exercise. Labradors are creatures of habit. You thought death and taxes were hard to avoid? Try missing his usual walk time. Seriously. Psychologists in the military use Labradors as the go-to training aid for SAS-style relentlessness. You’ll cave. Eventually.On the plus side – and Labradors usually are – you’ll have someone who looks fatter than you do in high viz lycra. And to keep your motivation up he’ll always let you win any race. Well, you won’t be stopping every few yards to sniff crisp packets and lick empty Greggs bags, will you? (WILL YOU?!) But don’t do your business in the street like he does. Unless you’re an actual marathon runner.

Jane Lovering – ‘Bum’s Away’

I recommend placing a large picture of one’s object of desire some six feet distant, then practising ‘lunging’ forward with alternate legs to place a kiss upon said object of desire. Not only does this shape the behind, but it gives necessary practice in the ‘snog and retreat’, which comes in handy should one actually meet the object of one’s desire.# Aim for ten kisses with each leg. #no liability accepted for restraining orders.

Clare Mackintosh – The upside-down diet tip: a poem

I was trim, I was slim, I attended a gym, Then I left work to become a writer. Now I scoff, and I trough (and I’m still no Chekhov). It’s no shock that I’m getting no lighter. I’m game for a change, I can’t stay the same, And I’ve hit on the perfect idea, It’ll win, I’ll be thin, I’ll have only one chin, A skinnier version of Shakespeare. So what is the plot? It won’t take a lot, I shall stand on my head when I’m eating. When I chew on my stew, without further ado It’ll stay in my head (that’s the cheating). Begone, Deli jelly! Don’t enter my belly, Go right up and hand-feed my brain. All that bread can instead go direct to my head, With an order of chicken chow mein. I shall shrink, I shall slink, I’ll be able to think, With such nutrients feeding my mind. I shall write, I shall fight, I won’t ever turn upright, In my quest for a tiny behind. The End. p.s. Don’t try this at home.

Tony Tibbenham – Roll 6 for Chocolate

If you really want that chocolate roll a dice and if you get a 6 you are allowed the treat. Variations include rolling 2 dice and only allowing the treat if you get double 6.Things to be aware of: Only allow yourself one roll per treat, no rolling for hours until the 6 appears.  Consider rolling really vigorously so you must scramble all round the room and under the sofa to find the dice after the roll:  That way you get exercise and the chance of a treat.

***

And next weekend we shall be announcing the winner!

For a reminder of the prize…

The entrants had to: Write a diet or fitness tip in no more than 250 words. Entries were be judged on originality and entertainment value.

The author of the best tip will win: a week’s writing course with Jane Wenham-Jones, September 28th-4th October 2013 at Chez Castillon (see http://chez-castillon.com for full description) including meals and accommodation (flights not included) – worth £875.

And as a late addition to the goodies on offer, Janie and Mike Wilson – owners of the fabulous Chez-Castillon, have offered two £100 vouchers towards a course of the winners’ choice (terms and conditions apply). So THREE lucky names will be revealed here next Sunday at 6pm…

Thank you again to all that entered!

Jane, Janie and Morgen xxx

***

Plain Jane: With beaches like ours, why are we still languishing in deprivation?

Plain Jane with Jane Wenham-Jones: With beaches like ours, why are we still languishing in deprivation?

I BLAME my colleague Mike Pearce. I go to France for a week and when I come back the world has gone mad.

I can only assume that the collective mental aberration that led to seven Thanet Ukip candidates gaining seats in the KCC elections was down to the electorate misguidedly attempting to prove the grumpy old devil wrong when he predicted the Tories would retain control (he was right of course) or reeling in horror as he revealed why they shouldn’t. But for heaven’s sake! A protest vote is one thing – if it involves Jedi Warriors or the Raving Monsters – Ukip is a step too far.

We in Thanet need all the sensible support we can get, fighting our corner up at County Hall, not a motley collection of the blinkered to the frankly bonkers from a party whose recent national news coverage features members accused of making Nazi salutes, facing revelations of their previous membership of the National Front and claiming that extra PE lessons in schools prevent homosexuality (you couldn’t make it up, could you!).

I am appalled and not a little alarmed. Or to sum up: I don’t make a habit of quoting David Cameron but when it comes to describing members of Ukip as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists,” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Scary election results were not all I came back to. My teaching stint at Chez Castillon in the Dordogne was delightful but came at a time when I was already behind on almost everything.

Bank Holiday Monday saw me looking at a small mountain of domestic and administrative tasks, two neglected manuscripts and the deadlines for three columns, including this one. I viewed the washing that needed sorting, the plants that wanted feeding, the post that should be opened and the half-unpacked suitcase I’d fallen over twice, and did the only thing one can do in a state of rising panic. I declared a day off and went for a walk.

This took me four miles round the coast to Margate, where I had a coffee in the Harbour Café Bar, played a brief game of Spot the Weekender (I’d suggest you tried it with the children if it posed any sort of challenge) and returned along the beach.

My wander took me across the busy sands of Joss, Kingsgate and Stone Bays, past the ski-jets and packed cafe, the stream of visitors to the Turner, lots of tables and chairs and sunshades, families cycling, couples strolling and a pack of fearsome-looking grannies with walking boots, sticks and haversacks who were look set to make it to Land’s End (good on yer!).

The sun was shining – I actually burned – the sky was blue, the sea calm and enticing and I thought, for about the 1,000th time in my adult life, so what is it that goes wrong?

Our coastline is stunning, we have attractions galore.

There are bars and restaurants aplenty, easy links to sea, road, rail and air.

We’re close to the capital, a spit from the continent and nothing costs too much.

Visitors are coming but why aren’t all the hotels bursting and the restaurants full?

Why is there still deprivation and unemployment when we can boast so much?

Why aren’t Thanet’s coastal towns, despite appearing on the must-see lists and being featured in the glossies, booming on a par with Falmouth, Aldeburgh and St Ives? Or even Whitstable?

Why hasn’t our cuteness/culture/maritime splendour/shabby chic – pick your corner, take your choice – turned our poor fortunes around too? I have my suspicions but I’d love to know yours.

Answers– on a post card, naturally – please.

***

Read the original article on: http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Plain-Jane-Jane-Wenham-Jones-beaches-like/story-18947331-detail/story.html#ixzz2SsiZjLMH
Follow This is Kent: @thisiskent on Twitter

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition – Top 12

Taa-Raaa – we have the first set of results of the Fight the Flab Competition, judged by Janie Milman, co-owner of the fab Chez-Castillon, Morgen-with-an-e-Bailey – blog-designer extraordinaire and me. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. Morgen has been the organised one and done all the admin so over to her….

Hi Morgen here

Yes, that’s right – the entries were so impressive that we couldn’t agree on just ten.

Five of the twelve received a vote from all three judges, the other seven were picked by two of us.

Below are the shortlisted twelve  and we shall be putting our heads together to pick out a winner… we may be some time! Only kidding, we will be posting the Top 5 here on Saturday 11th May then the winner on Saturday 18th May… listen out for the fanfare.

For a reminder of the prize…

The entrants had to: Write a diet or fitness tip in no more than 250 words. Entries were be judged on originality and entertainment value.

The author of the best tip will win: a week’s writing course with Jane Wenham-Jones, September 28th-4th October 2013 at Chez Castillon (see http://chez-castillon.com for full description) including meals and accommodation (flights not included) – worth £875.

***

and now for the Top 12… (in alphabetical order by surname)

Name	Tip Name
Karen Booth	The Regulating Waistband Plan
Philippa Bowe	Clean out your colon
Tracy Fells	The E-Plan
Ninette Hartley	Sleep The Fat Away
Jessica Kennedy	Stop Doing the Dishes
Cathy Lennon	Acquire a Labrador
Jane Lovering	Bum’s Away
Clare Mackintosh	The upside-down diet tip: a poem
Jan Newton	Make Rejection Work for You
Janet O’Kane	Why join a gym when you can work out at the supermarket?
Rebecca Stanley	In a Spin
Tony Tibbenham	Roll 6 for Chocolate

So good luck to those 12 and watch this space for the top 5 next weekend and the winner the weekend after!

So good luck to those 12 and watch this space for the top 5 next weekend and the winner the weekend after!

Isle of Thanet Gazette: Plain Jane 260413

If Thanet councillors don’t want people to see them brawling, they should behave with dignity

YEARS ago, when I was young and passionate, I joined the throngs in Hyde Park for a CND march.

In Trafalgar Square at its finish, we were addressed by the Right Honourable Tony Benn.

Three decades on, I can’t remember his precise words (I can barely recall yesterday) but I understood his basic message to be that the powers-that-were should keep a sense of proportion.

At a time when there was Better-Dead-Than-Red type hysteria, he made the mild suggestion that perhaps the Russians weren’t actually poised to invade us, take over Westminster and turn Britain into a Communist state, and that we should keep calm and spend our millions on welfare instead of bombs. Never mind what President Reagan might have to say on the matter.

The details are now hazy but what I have never forgotten is that by the time it reached the TV news that night, his speech had been reduced to a soundbite that had him all but welcoming in the Commies with open arms.

Such is the power of the editing suite as anyone who has ever been on television or been filmed or recorded in any way may know to their cost.

So maybe it was this kind of selective reporting that the good members of our esteemed council feared when they summarily threw Broadstairs resident Christine Tongue out of the council chamber last week for attempting to film proceedings.

Or perhaps they just didn’t want the rest of us to see that one of their number was shaking his fist at another elected representative, and getting rather red and aerated, and that it looked for all the world like a punch-up was on its way.

A spectacle that Christine, of the Thanet Watch blog, found too tempting to resist.

The debate in question was over the fated Pleasurama project and interested parties in the shape of the Friends of Ramsgate Seafront were there.

It was notable, Christine told me, how “articulate and informed” these protesters were in comparison with certain councillors who showed themselves to be significantly “less articulate and informed”, or “downright ignorant” as Christine put it.

“They were very bad-tempered,” she says, “and soon descended into abusing each other.”

Christine, believing it in the public interest to reveal how councillors behave in their meetings, started out by making notes but explains: “When it looked as though a fight was going to break out, I thought I’d get the camera out…”

Upon which, the session was brought to an abrupt halt while they got her out instead. Despite Christine offering to put the camera away for the remainder of the session, she was escorted from the premises by one of the two security blokes (both apparently employed by a firm in Bromley – do we not have security personnel in Thanet who might like a job?).

Independent councillor Ian Driver, who had by now whipped out his own camera and was taking some stills, was expelled a little later.

Bloggers various have since expounded on both individuals’ motives and potential for stirring up trouble but, actually, how is that relevant?

I would take the view on the principle of filming generally that if it’s good enough for the House of Commons it’s good enough for TDC.

Why shouldn’t council meetings be open and transparent?

If you don’t want your public to see you brawling, chaps – I understand it was a female councillor who finally stepped between the two shouters and tried to diffuse the situation – then behave with dignity and decorum. Because, of course, if you play up, we’ll want to watch.

There might be nothing on TV.

***

The Ab Fab ChipLitFest :-)

Well what a lov-er-ley time I had at this year’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival – a treat indeed. You would never believe the festival is only in its second year from its big-name line up and terrific organisation but it is and I’ve been lucky enough to be there for both of them. This time I had the enormous pleasure and privilege of being “in conversation with”  the super-best-selling Peter James on Saturday, who talked about his forthcoming Dead Man’s Time  (I got to read a review copy – bloody brilliant!)  fascinated us all with his police tales and amused greatly with his unique revenge tactics on Martin Amis (ha ha!). Peter is a dream to interview!

(Thanks Liz Fenwick for the photo of us at the Crown and Cushion!)

As is the gorgeous and delightful Fern Britton. I met her for about a minute before we started our event around her latest entertaining novel The Holiday Home but she was as warm and relaxed as if we were old friends. What a totally lovely, natural and generous lady. The audience adored her and so did I. She had some hilarious stories too… (Was Chipping Norton ready for the word c*ck?  Certainly seemed to be…. ) We all laughed lots.

Thanks Jan Harvey for taking this one

So put next year’s dates in your diary now. Chipping Norton Lit Fest 2014 runs from 24th – 27th April and I’m excited already….

Plain Jane 12.04.13: Iain Duncan Smith could live on £53 a week – but that is not the point

Plain Jane 12.04.13:

I am often asked to sign petitions and occasionally I do, but mostly I find them a pointless waste of time.

And never more so than the one currently circulating, requesting Iain Duncan Smith to attempt to live on £53 a week.

This annoys me on several levels. Firstly, I heard the exchange between the Work and Pensions Secretary and John Humphrys on Radio Four’s Today programme, as it happened, and I wonder how many of the people pressing send on their e-mails and tweets, actually did so too.

Just for the record, I am NOT in favour of demonising or penalising those out of work.

I think potential implications of the “bedroom tax” are awful.

The disparity between rich and poor in this country should be a matter of national shame and I believe many in Westminster lead such removed and rarefied lives they have no grasp of what it is like to have no money.

However, the comment by Mr Duncan Smith is, as I see it, a typical media-hyped, example of the out-of-context sound-bite.

The MP was – quite fairly – put on the spot by John Humphrys, asking him, following an interview with market trader, David Bennett, if he could, as Mr Bennett had enquired, live on £53 a week.

Mr Duncan Smith replied quickly, “Well, if I had to I would,” before going on to say he couldn’t comment on individual cases, etc and blah. This was not entirely unreasonable. While, nobody, in my opinion, should be expected to live on that paltry amount, if you “had to” what choice would you have? His expressing that, which is what his tone also implied, is not quite the same as “I could live on £53 in benefits a week, says Mr Duncan Smith” which was one of the ensuing headlines.

Petitions asking him to try it, anyway, are futile for two reasons. 1) since when did any politician do anything because names on a sheet wanted him to? and 2) it would prove absolutely nothing because, of course, he could do it, for a week.

Like I could probably do things I would fear and dread – go to prison, say, or sleep on the streets – if it was for an article or TV footage. If I knew it was only temporary.

The hard, heartbreaking, dispiriting, flattening thing is to have to do it for a year, or five years, or as long into the future as you can imagine, because there are no jobs and no prospects of anything getting any better. And that’s unlikely to happen to anyone currently working out of Westminster and challenging them to play Let’s Pretend on the matter is just fudging the issue.

Better surely, that we sign a petition asking politicians to take some radical action to ensure that nobody has to survive on so little. Because, long-term, one can’t. Which is why so many of those on benefits have to get into debt, or go without basics, in order to make it through.

Instead of them kicking the poor when they’re down already, let’s ask the government to kick the banks – into lending, into getting the economy going, and stimulating employment. Think if we did, it would make a difference? No, neither do I.

It had to happen one day. Ed Miliband has said something worth repeating.

Upon the death of Margaret Thatcher, the Labour leader explained that the Labour party had disagreed with much of what the former premier had done, but concluded: “But we can disagree and also hugely respect her extraordinary achievements and her extraordinary personal strength.”

It’s about how I feel. I didn’t like what she did but could never help having a grudging admiration for the fact that she was able to do it.. Mrs T – RIP.

You can read the article on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Plain-Jane-Jane-Wenham-Jones-Iain-Duncan-Smith/story-18686333-detail/story.html.

With friends like Mike :-)

Whenever I give one of my friends one of my books to read (some  are too tight-fisted to cough up for one themselves ) I always say the same thing: you can be brutally honest. Of course, people still feel they can’t be. One pal took months to admit she hated my third novel with a passion, after loving the first two, thinking that by saying that, she’d upset me. Actually I was fascinated. It was illuminating to hear what had affected her so badly and we had a really interesting exchange as a result.

Refreshingly, My-mate-Mike, my fellow-columnist on the Isle of Thanet Gazette has no such inhibitions. I wouldn’t normally shove a review in front of you but the running commentary spread over several emails, made me laugh so much, I thought I’d post  the edited highlights. (The dots are where I’ve removed a spoiler – just in case after reading this, anyone still feels like braving the PRIME TIME. The Italics are mine. ) It’s been good to see how one of my books – primarily aimed at the female market – goes down with a chap too. Could he possibly empathise with the heroine? It seems not…

“I’m enjoying the plot but developed an early and intense dislike for the central character. No wonder hubby cleared off.”

“Not a difficult choice when the alternative is a wine-saturated busybody, always wittering about her internal workings.”

“Too much wine and whine in first 100 pages.”

“What the hell’s it got to do with her if he….? Surprised he didn’t smack her when she started quizzing him.”

“I trust you have planned a suitably hideous end for her.”

“Don’t like the sulky son or the oily television bloke, either.”

“Really enjoying it, especially now she’s …… Very droll and picking up pace splendidly. Still hope central character comes to a distressing end.”

“I reckon oily tv bloke will turn out to be a ******” (NB he was wrong)

“Looks as if the raddled woman might finish up with ….. Serves her right.”

“Your best book so far, by a mile. Can’t understand why it was nominated in the romantic comedy section…”

“Didn’t find a typo for more than 200 pages, then two more followed quickly, but three in 300 pages is a miracle nowadays. I trust they sacked the myopic work experience dunce who allegedly roof-read ……” (Insert title of one of my previous books) (Not sure if this is Mike being hilarious or he really left the “p” out…)

“I shall be sad when I’ve finished – which is the highest compliment anyone can pay an author! “

“Wonderful! So the two ghastlies finished up ….”

“A very good modern morality tale, which I think is too profound to deserve a rom-com tag. “

“Wonderful! Apart from the beginning….”

Thank you, Mike! Reviewer to the Non-Faint-Hearted.

Am sure if YOU’D like a no-holds barred review for your magnus opus, I can probably persuade him to oblige…

Plain Jane in the Isle of Thanet Gazette

I can’t find this up on thisiskent.co.uk despite the invitation at the foot of the printed column – if you can, please do send me the link! So here it is, for those that care, my take on why Broadstairs is a fabulous place to live – as spotted last weekend by The Times. Thoughts and comments welcome…

This is Why We Love Thanet

As those of you who read a quality newspaper will know, Broadstairs has been named by The Times as one of the 30 Best Places to Live by The Sea. The newspaper cites as its high points: good schools, blue flag beaches and the fact that London is 80 minutes away by train. Can’t dispute any of that, but those of us who live here can surely do better. As a long-time resident of what the Times refers to as this “genteel” town (they weren’t here on a Friday night, then), may I offer my own top reasons why Broadstairs in particular, and Thanet in general, is a fab place to live.

1) The Ahhh factor. When skipping among the dropped litter, dodging the dog poo or sighing sadly at boarded up shops, it is easy to forget how totally gorgeous Thanet can be. Look at the sweep of Margate Beach from the harbour arm, take time to stop and stare at Ramsgate’s glorious marina and feast your eyes on Viking Bay, twinkling at night or picture-book pretty by day, fishing boats bobbing. I can still wander the twisting pathway behind Bleak House, down past the 18th century Tartar Frigate and think: Wow.

2) Independent shops. Glossing over the lapse in taste that brought Iceland to Broadstairs High Street – most of the outlets here are small or quirky. Never underestimate how entirely fortunate we are to still have butchers and bakers and greengrocers and traditional stores like Harrington’s the ironmongers, the Bottleneck, York Street Post Office (or a post office at all!) and Peters Shoe Repairs.

3) Pubs. They may be under pressure but we can still boast as fine an array of timeless hostelries as you’ll find anywhere. Consider not only the lilies but the White Swan or The Brown Jug. And with 5000 boozers having closed across the country – the fact that we have bars opening. Check out the new wave of real ale micro pubs and rejoice.

4) Old Buildings Steeped in History. The bijou Palace Cinema in Harbour Street, the tiny Dickens Pantry and mullioned windows of Serene Place, York Gate, The Theatre Royal, the Tom Thumb ETC.

5) Old Codgers steeped in controversy. Credit where credit is due – we have the most entertaining local council in the land. Where else could you boast a set of elected representatives who have variously been put away for forgery and corruption, hauled up for brawling, played fancy dress with Arab sheiks, been dressed down for abusive phone calls, accused of homophobia, animal neglect and drink-driving… and just know in your heart, there’ll be more laughs to come ….

6) Interesting locals. An eclectic, eccentric bunch ranging from the old school, dyed-in-the-wool stalwarts of middle England to the arty dilettantes to the campaigning, table-thumping thorns in the council’s side. Millionaires shuffling along in hand-me-downs. Flash Harries with personalised numberplates on their third bankruptcy. All life is here!

7) Calendars and customs. Annual events that soldier on. The Dickens Play, Dickens Festival, Folk Week, town carnivals, Water Gala, Ramsgate Week… A shame the bank holiday punch-up on Margate seafront petered out but still lots to enjoy.

8) A proper local paper. With a letters page. (And Smudger). Take a look at the rags in other necks of the wood. See what I mean?

9) A local airport to take you pretty much anywhere. Hurrah for KLM and daily flights to Schipol. Am I the only one excited? The Loop isn’t bad either.

10) Being safe. Yes, Thanet has its moments but overall crime is relatively low, and residents mostly decent. If you fall over in the street, someone will usually pick you up. There’s an A & E up the road, police to be seen, the bins get emptied (eventually) and it could all be worse. At least it’s not Dover.

HOT TIP No. 1: A Chilli a Day Keeps a Lard Arse at Bay

Reblogged from 100 Ways To Fight The Flab:

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So eat a chilli. The hotter the better. Chillies raise the metabolism and the fierier they are, the greater the effect. I ate my last fresh one last night and it's too cold to go shopping today so here, by way of illustration,  are some I bottled in olive oil the last time I was being a domestic goddess - HA!

Read more… 304 more words

Would love it if anyone would like to follow the new FLAB blog. One hot (no pun intended) tip per week - you won't be inundated. And if there's nothing good on TV tonight I am on Radio Litopia at 8pm till nearly 9. See http://www.litopia.com/radio/shows/litopia-after-dark/ Happy Sunday jxx

A Very British Blog Post

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Have been having a grand catch-up on my emails (just the 117 now left in my To-Answer folder) and discovered this British Blog Post offering, received on 23rd February, duly flagged up for my IMMEDIATE attention and then lost in the mire, from one Seumas Gallacher who is a v. good chum of mine.

Seumas first emailed me out of the blue back in… oh, 2008 I think it was, and said he’d enjoyed Wannabe a Writer? and he’d love to take me out to lunch. (Apparently I was his third choice after Billy Connelly and Alex Ferguson but they didn’t want to come.)

Well, how could I resist such flattery?

Usually I resist it very well actually (not for nothing do I have a chapter in Wannabe a Writer We’ve Heard Of? entitled Nutters & Weirdos) but there was something about old Seumas’s email that made me say – hey, why not?

I even met him on Friday 13th.

When I queried the wisdom of this, he promised to bring along a black cat and he did!  It lives on the back seat of my car –  I won’t tell you what I call it – and, I like to think, keeps me safe on long journeys…

Since that first lunch, when he was asking me questions about the whole publishing process, describing what an old dinosaur he was when it came to all things web-based,  he has written two thrillers which have downloaded in their thousands and also become a blogging fanatic. Now he can teach me a thing or two!

So since he says I should do a Very British Blog Post I thought I would. Tho’ I’m not putting on the flowery frock for anyone. Here goes…

Q. Where were you born and where do you live at the moment?

A. I was born in North Cray – which counts as a London borough these days, but was then Kent. Now I live in Broadstairs by the sea…

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Q. Have you always lived and worked in Britain or are you based elsewhere at present?

A. Always been here. Tho’ now base myself in the Dordogne for at least a couple of weeks a year at the fab www.chez-castillon.com. Teaching there this April (one last place left on my course) and September. Click here for details (where you can try to win your stay for free!).

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Q. Which is your favourite part of Britain?

A. Oh gosh I hate having to pick favourites. When I spend too much time here, I miss the buzz of London, when I’m a few days in the city I look forward to seeing the sea. If I go hill-walking in Wales I feel I should do it more often, if I visit the west country I long to live there… Britain has too many lovely corners and contrasts to make that sort of choice.

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Q. Have you ‘highlighted’ or ‘showcased’ any particular part of Britain in your books? For example, a town or city; a county, a monument or some well-known place or event?

A. Both my third and fourth novels One Glass is Never Enough and Prime Time are set mostly here in Broadstairs.

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Q. There is an illusion – or myth if you wish – about British people that I would like you to discuss. Many see the ‘Brits’ as ‘stiff upper lip’. Is that correct? 

A. Maybe in old films…  Though I do think we are good in a crisis. Brits don’t run about screaming when the place is on fire or the roof has fallen in. They get on with what has to be done and then have a nice cup of tea.

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Q. Do any of the characters in your books carry the ‘stiff upper lip’? Or are they all ‘British Bulldog’ and unique in their own way?

A. My heroines are more likely to weep and wail and throw themselves about, to be honest. And then have a stiff drink. The only stiff upper lip in Prime Time comes when Laura has Botox.

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Q. Tell us about one of your recent books

A. Prime Time – a cheering tale of dysfunction and daytime TV - was shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy category of the RoNas – the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards. And One Glass Is Never Enough was based on my two years of co-owning a wine bar. Oh dear that’s two books. Silly me.

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Q. What are you currently working on?

A. The full-length print version of 100 Ways to Fight the Flab – which will be out next Christmas.

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Q. How do you spend your leisure time?

A. Walking, reading, eating and drinking, playing poor tennis, wondering how the hell I managed to get so behind on my emails…

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Q. Do you write for a local audience or a global audience?

A. I write for anyone who is good enough to read me and I’m hugely grateful to every one of ‘em. Thank you xx

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Q. Can you provide links to your work?

A. Of course – tho’ I think they are pretty much plastered all over this blog already. See “books”

Hope that meets with approval, my old mate. Now I believe I have to suggest others to do this too?

How about

Morgen – http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

Vikki – http://angelchildvikki.wordpress.com

Lynne Hackles - http://www.lynnehackles.blogspot.co.uk

Annie Ireson – http://annieye.blogspot.co.uk

and PDR  http://rowanlindsay.blogspot.co.uk/

for starters….

But if anyone else reading this, fancies a go, why not? Leave a comment here so we can all come and read it.

jxx

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Plain Jane, Isle of Thanet Gazette, 15th March 2013: A heavy Pryce for us all to pay

Thought it was too good to be true.

My Plain Jane column is up online but without my name on it. Again.

But did write it, honest.  As seen on page 15 of the paper proper…

What do you think about custodial sentences? Bang ‘em all up or try out some more constructive penalties?

***

100 Ways To Combat Writer's Bottom: An Interview with Jane Wenham-Jones

Reblogged from Catherine, Caffeinated:

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Jane Wenham-Jones is the author of one of my all-time favorite "how to" writing books, Wannabe a Writer? And since I started writing full-time, my arse has been expanding at a rate that's in direct proportion to the amount of time I've been spending sitting on it. So when I heard that Jane had published a new e-book, 100 Ways To Fight The Flab: The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom…

Read more… 958 more words

Very pleased to have been interviewed by the lovely Catherine. She is hilarious. (And knows a bit about a bit too! Have a look and enjoy.) Only just remembered one can do this reblogging lark. So here goes...

RNA & Plain Jane 1st March 2013: The sartorial choices of the stay-at-home writer

Bit lax on the old blogging front lately but will catch up soon with the excitements of Richard and Judy at the book awards – for a small insight, see Liz Fenwick’s clip here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFRiukyq_RI and things various, soon.

In the meantime, my Plain Jane is up on line – with my name on it! Hurrah….

Plain Jane 15 Feb 2013: Lasagne? What’s the beef?

The trouble with writing a column five days in advance  and then not getting round to posting it for three more is that by then – the whole world has changed. A week is a long time in Burger-land too!

But posting anyway, for those of you (two at the last count) who like to follow my PJs  and because I have embarked on an ill-advised project to rearrange my writing room (currently looks like Steptoe’s yard) and have no time to write anything else.

Yours in grumpy disorientation because there is no Today Programme this morning (Footnote for blog-readers from foreign climes – BBC Journalists on strike) and there are books all over the floor….

jxx

100 Ways to Fight The Flab – Womag Review

100 Ways to Fight The Flab has its second review!

• “heartily recommend for all writers, both big and small”
• “I must say it’s quite brilliant”

Click here to read Womag’s favourite tip!

er… not on the radio after all…

Quick one to say that they have technical problems over at Radio Litopia so I won’t be on this evening after all…

Will post new date as soon as I know it. In the meantime, hope you are all having a lovely time on this wet, windy bloody-freezing Sunday – or is that just the fair Isle of Thanet?

Despite the horrible weather, I have been much cheered this weekend by a great review by the lovely Kath over at womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk.

Coming up next in a blog post that Morgen made earlier….

Shortlists and radio shows

There – don’t they look pretty? Prime Time with the covers of the other lovely books shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy category of the RoNas.Very proud to be in such excellent company. You can see all the other categories and short-listed novels HERE. 18 days to go to the ceremony with  Richard & Judy (how thrilling is that!) – as I see from Morgen’s countdown box on the right (which also means 18 days to follow my own advice so I can get the zip on my dress done up!).

In the meantime if you happen to be hanging around, having a fiddle on the internet on a forthcoming Sunday evening (as one does), I am on Radio Litopia (date t.b.a.) from 8pm which sounds like fun. I gather you listen – or even join in – by clicking http://litopia.tv/rad. Can’t tell you any more as it’s all new to me too. It was Ms Bailey’s idea so we’ll blame her if it all goes wrong

Until then – have a great weekend and don’t drink any more than I would.

jxxx

PS More of the shortlisted books  - including some by lovely friends…

Today’s Plain Jane

Hello and  Happy Friday. We have progress of sorts.

My column in the Isle of Thanet Gazette is finally online (hurrah) but does not yet bear my name (possibly a blessing in disguise as will not be top favourite down at t’ local council  this morning).   To see it in all its questionable glory click HERE  and take my word for it that I wrote it.

For those not living in Thanet,  who don’t give a flying f*** about Mssrs Worrow and Gregory (very wise) then in other news the programme for the CHIPPING NORTON LITERARY FESTIVAL  is out now! Am very excited about this and will be wittering on about it in much greater depth as we get closer.

Have a great weekend….

Writing, Work and Wine with... Jane Wenham-Jones

Reblogged from Writing, Work and Wine:

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Those who are sharp-eyed and read my last author post with Peter Jones may have noticed that I failed to publish a post last Wednesday. Oops, sorry about that... other stuff prevented me from getting to my blog, but in my defense I did appear on the Romaniacs blog again (with some lovely authors); here's the link if you're interested…

Read more… 990 more words

Thank you Nikki Goodman for inviting me over to hers earlier. Always happy to talk about wine.....

Overly excited and thrilled

Am suitably delighted to report that Prime Time has been shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy category of the RoNas today.

This is a massive honour  of course – especially when you see the wonderful writers I am listed with – and means that I am going to have to follow my own tips with renewed vigour before the awards ceremony on 26th Feb (I do feel a new frock is called for) (and possibly shoes).

To celebrate, my publishers have drastically reduced the price of Prime Time on Kindle – if you want to grab it for the price of a tin of beans, now is the time.

Off tomorrow to Chez Castillon. Enjoying the competition entries to-date. If you haven’t sent yours in yet, see 100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition.

More when back…

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday 18th January 2013

Eat crisps to beat the flab

The problem with having written a weight-control book (one can hardly talk “diet” when tips involves chocolate) is that the world expects you to be thin. When you’ve written it in a mad deadline-chasing frenzy, involving sitting on your backside for ten days straight, your only exercise the flapping of your typing fingers and the occasional stretch for a biscuit, this is less likely than usual. And when your birthday falls only two weeks after Christmas and this year’s must-haves all seem to involve 70% cocoa and invitations for pizza, it is nigh on impossible.

I have looked in envy over the years, at the best-selling authors of best-selling diet books with their super-twig frames on the cover and thought how great it must be to hit both the big and small time (as it were) simultaneously. I realise now that their problems were just beginning.

I remember hearing of a well-known name, who, having shed four stone for her UK publication, had put it all back on again by the time she was offered the USA tour. There she was sat on breakfast show sofas looking like her BEFORE instead of her AFTER (out there they probably didn’t notice), trying to extol the virtues of living on beetroot (or whatever it was) and wondering why sales were slow. And I have since sat opposite a minor celeb who would only suck a lettuce leaf for dinner because the publicity shots for her miracle eating plan were due and it was six months (and half a stone) since she’d written it.

I am not, of course, in quite the same boat. Not only am I unlikely to be required to hold forth on TV (fortunate since the very act of appearing before camera puts ten pounds on before you start) but I took the precaution of having the promotional shots of my derriere taken long before the festive season (leading my esteemed colleague Mike-don’t-believe-a-word-of-it-Pearce, upon viewing these, if you want to brace yourself – to make the, frankly defamatory, suggestion that I had hired a bottom double or had my rear reduced by photo-shop).

In any case, my new work, nattily entitled 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, is not so much designed to make you thin but to suggest methods by which you can drink wine and eat as many crisps as I do and not become clinically obese. This does not stop the eyes of anyone I tell about it, dropping straight to my stomach. “It’s supposed to be a light-hearted read,” I trill, as I suck in my offending middle (a feat made easier by following tips 7 and 92), “although all the ways work…” I then offer up my (normal) BMI and hip to waist ratio, breathe in a bit harder, and announce how many chocolates I ate the day before. This seldom fails to impress. “And just the one airline seat”, I finish cheerily. I still see the surreptitious glances at my thighs.

The answer, I’ve decided, is to stick to radio. I’ll be on BBC Radio Kent with Pat Marsh this afternoon at 2.45pm if you’d like to hear more. I may have a fat voice but I’m slimmer than that really…

100 Ways to Fight the Flab – the Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom is available as an ebook and on Kindle at £1.99. For a review see the 100 Ways to Fight the Flab book page.
For a chance to write your own diet or fitness tip and win a writing course with Jane at Chez Castillon in the Dordogne, click HERE.

100 Ways to Fight the Flab

I know I’m a bit of a show-off but even I wouldn’t display my bottom without good reason.

These photos were taken as possible cover shots for my new book – 100 Ways to Fight the Flab, currently on Kindle, possibly in print later, written to help writers everywhere combat Writer’s Bottom.

(Ironically my own derriere is a couple of pounds heavier than it is in the pics, from where I sat on it solidly for a week finishing said work. I am now following own tips…).

Even if you are not a writer, but are feeling a little blobby and jaded after the festive season, and still like your wine and crisps, then this is for you too.

If you ARE a writer, or think you might like to be one then there’s an added extra between the pages – a competition to win a week’s course – with me! – at the glorious Chez-Castillon in the Dordogne. Full details HERE.

Mere ordinary mortals will have to buy the book to find the entry code but for you my lovely, loyal blog-readers, here it is anyway WRITERSBOTTOM13. So nothing to lose (except fat!) and a fab holiday to win – worth £875, no less. (If you want to download the book out of sheer gratitude you can click here ).

Extract:

I am probably not thin enough to be writing a diet book….

But on the other hand, I am not morbidly obese.

Which, considering my unhealthy career choice (not for nothing did I coin the term ‘Writer’s Bottom’), vast consumption of wine, crisps and chocolate and somewhat erratic approach to exercise, is a small miracle. Depending on which set of charts I use and how much I fudge my height, I am generally within ‘normal’ parameters.

I have a BMI of 22 ish, a hip to waist ratio that passes muster with the medical profession and there was a day, once, when I was wearing black and the sort of underwear that crushes your internal organs, when I was even described as ‘slim’.

I am at the sort of weight where if you dress cleverly, hold your stomach in and make sure no one snaps you with a wide-angled lens, you can get by without anybody thinking you’re too much of a fat moo (heavy weekend on the peanuts, a badly cut dress and the skinniest friend in tow: different story).

If I need to, I can quickly lose half a stone, and the rest of the time, there are small steps I take to keep that writer’s backside at bay. I am going to share these with you here.

As a disclaimer, I must point out that I am not a nutritionist, or a doctor and if you are truly obese and needing three airline seats there is little I can do except to suggest you don’t wear white leggings.

But if your arse is merely on the large side and you’re feeling a little podgy round the edges, welcome to my world….

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As mentioned above, ‘The 100 Ways to Fight the Flab – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom’ is available on Kindle from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk…

Update 18th January 2013: 100 Ways received its first review! You can read it on the 100 Ways to Fight the Flab book page.

Top Comment-leaver of 2012…

Yes, excitement, drum roll, etc. I am pleased to announce that…

Tony Tibbenham has the doubtful glory of being crowned the most-frequent-commenter on this blog in 2012. (WordPress supply all sorts of fascinating statistics as midnight strikes.)

Congratulations Tony!

I would send you a signed book to celebrate but you’ve told me you’ve got them all. (God bless you)

SO I have just sent you a £1.99 amazon gift token (this woman’s generosity knows no bounds) with which to purchase my new e book “100 WAYS TO FIGHT THE FLAB – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom” which is out SOON. (I put on two pounds being glued to my computer for a fortnight to write it.) Watch this space  for further details….

In the meantime, a Happy New Year to you and ALL my lovely blog-readers.

Thank you for all of your comments and emails and just being there.

Love yer and look forward to talking more in 2013.

Have a good one.

janexx

My-Mate-Mike in the Isle of Thanet Gazette 28th December

Remember my excellent advice on coping when the old man is suddenly at home ALL BLOODY DAY?

My esteemed fellow columnist on the Gazette, Mike Bah-Humbug Pearce, has waded in with his own rantings on the matter. Still, keeps him busy, love him. He is retired, you know…

The perils of retired life by Mike Pearce 

SO WHERE were we before we were so rudely interrupted by Christmas?

Ah! yes, my columnist chum Jane Wenham-Jones was offering advice to a wimpy woman wanting to know how could she cope now her husband is retiring, which is like asking a flower how it’s going to cope now that the refreshing rain is on its way. All chaps know it is the MAN who will need help.

So agony aunt Jane and your new pal, please go off and have a natter while I reveal what he needs to know.

Dear Jim. Make sure you invest in a sat-nav.

You are now an on-demand chauffeur and your navigating spouse will invent a new compass point – There.

Whenever you ask “Where do we go?”, she will reply “Over there”. One lady told me, when we stopped at a T-junction, that we should go straight on.

Be prepared for preposterous assertions, the most popular being “You don’t want another drink” after you have just announced that it’s exactly what you would like.

Don’t announce your plans in advance, because you will be headed off at the pass with previously unthought-of things that can be done only on the day you plan to play golf.

Women used to have sinus trouble – “Sign us a cheque for this, sign us a cheque for that.” In the electronic age, leave your credit card at home if you are ever forced to join a shopping expedition.

Buy a second television. Your beloved will sit like a trappist through hours of soaps, then gabble like a goose as soon as anything remotely interesting comes on screen.

And yes, you can afford to have Sky Sports, if she can afford to buy glossy “style” magazines. And if you can’t afford both, get her interested in football. Tell her the centre-forward’s having an affair with someone from Eastenders, which she will find interesting and will probably be true anyway.

Treat yourself to an ipod and a set of earphones. Enjoy records you haven’t played for years, while at the same time blocking out the hour-long phone calls to the friend she had lunch with just hours earlier.

Accept that your suit-and-tie days are over. Casual clothes always look rumpled on an ageing frame, so don’t be ashamed to wear them for days or to leave them lying around the bedroom, the bathroom, the dining room and the hall. She will pick them up eventually, if only to allow the door to close.

Be careful how you react to her cooking. Be over-enthusiastic and you will get the same dish over and over. And when you point out that liver and bacon three times a week might be excessive, expect the: “I thought you liked it. What’s wrong with it?” sulks.

Say you’re not that keen and you’ve taken a short cut to the “What’s wrong with it?” stage.

Be prepared for sighs, an irritating affectation exclusive to women.

You spill your coffee, they go “Tch-huhhhhhhhhhh”. You forget (along with an increasing number of things) to put out the dustbin – “Tch-huhhhhhhhhhh”.

Be prepared for daft questions. When your phone rang at work, nobody would chirp up “Who’s that?”, as if you were Claude the Clairvoyant. Now you’ll get it all the time. Same if there’s a knock on the door. You might try answering “The neighbour I’m having an affair with”, or “The bailiffs”, but it’s a high-risk strategy.

And remember Jim, if this all sounds too daunting, B&Q are always keen to take on older workers.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday December 21st 2012

This might not make entire sense to those not blessed with living on the Isle of Thanet but perhaps you would would wish for similar for your town too…

Happy Christmas anyway!

jxxx

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What would make a perfect gift for Isle?

THE GAZETTE’s regular columnists Jane Wenham-Jones and Mike Pearce have been set a Christmas challenge by editor Rebecca Smith.

It’s better to give than receive, we are told, so what could glass-half-full Jane and glass-half-empty Mike come up with as the perfect gifts for Thanet?

WHO’S BEEN GOOD? A bumper parcel for Jane and socks again for Mike (photo by Bill Harris)

​JANE: What would I give Thanet this Christmas? Some positive vibes! Thanet has its problems but it’s got a whole heap of potential too. So I’d like to see less negativity from the disaffected quarters and no scaremongering. I wish the Isle further art galleries and creative ventures (to quote Ms Emin: where art comes, regeneration follows); a few more restaurants you can sit outside; and bars that face the sun.

I want the new micro pubs to do well, the older pubs to survive, the High Streets to hang in there and huge success for Manston Airport, (yes, yes, during the day! Don’t start that again).

I’d like to see certain councillors stepping down and others stepping up. I’d like derelict properties restored and landlords held to account and bad housing sorted.

Had I a magic Christmas wand, I would of course bring more employment and prosperity, fewer punch-ups and help for smaller shops and businesses. I’d say no to superstores and give a fat grant to anyone opening up an empty retail space and making jobs.

I’d have an open police station in each town, no more ridiculous “traffic-calming” and put Richborough Towers back where it was. I’d see the theatres full, the churches unvandalised and the loos unlocked. But in the sad absence of my fairy wings, I’ll just send a group hug. Have a good one!

And for my dear colleague Mike? I would give him a season ticket to Turner Contemporary events, a hot night out with Iris Johnston (his favourite!), a night flight from Manston and a signed, life-size photograph of Tracey Emin. Happy Christmas mate!

MIKE: AS A child, I would plead for expensive toys and receive a gift-wrapped box containing a battery and a message saying “Toy not included”. I offer my presents for Thanet, but remember – Santa is an anagram of Satan.

For Margate: A new road behind Dreamland, allowing a pedestrianised seafront paradise with a cafe culture in its true sense. Not just a few late-night boozers, but coffee bars, eateries and a tip of the hat to the glory days, with ice cream parlours, candy floss and family-friendly amusement arcades.

For Broadstairs: A large field, miles from anywhere, where morris men can beat each other with sticks, and lank-haired minstrels of indeterminate sex can whine about Strawberry Fair, Widdecombe Fair and Betfair for all I care, without providing an excuse for every yob this side of Tilbury to converge on the town centre and cause mayhem.

For Ramsgate: A fairy godmother to sprinkle stardust on the precious Ramsgate Sands site, shoo off would-be developers and turn back the clock to when it was a tourist magnet – or at least a car park.

For Thanet: A spaceship to descend and take away this hapless council. And then (oh Santa, if only) for 56 good men strong and true to come forward – people who will spend more time discussing agendas and less time discussing genders; people with intelligence and enthusiasm; people less concerned with causes and more concerned with the common good.

For the High Streets: An end to hand-wringing, silver-tongued soothsayers offering false dawns.

For the Turner Centre: A ticket machine, so they can finally admit there’s no such thing as a free Munch.

And following Margate’s inclusion in the Rough Travel Guide as the world’s seventh best tourist destination, an early copy of next year’s, showing Cliftonville has the world’s best forests, Manston the most successful airport and Westwood Cross the most efficient traffic system.

For Plain Jane?: A film company to buy up one of her novels. And an address book with the page for D torn out, so she avoids the duckies and divas and darlings who turn her pretty little head!

Plain Jane 14th December 2012: Coping with (his) retirement

As some of you may know, I write a fortnightly column – alternating with My-Mate-Mike (he who hovers just to the right of Genghis Khan and is considered a suitable antidote for what he views as my ‘dangerously-pink” tendencies) – in the Isle of Thanet Gazette. In theory this appears online on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk. In practice it frequently doesn’t. If it does, you need a degree in orienteering to find it and then, when you get there, it doesn’t bear my name.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday December 14th 2012

A missive from one Hilda Rarebit of Ramsgate (real name supplied). She doesn’t want her husband to know she is writing, as she is seeking my guidance on coping with retirement. His! Mr Rarebit is due to hang up his working shoes come Christmas.

“Have you,” Hilda enquires, “got any tips on how I am going to hack it  when he’s under my feet all day?”

Well, strange you should ask. I am not sure whether the good Mrs Rarebit, who describes herself as “an avid Gazette reader”, recalls that my own spouse is some two decades my senior and put down his own tools of the trade (a phone and corkscrew) longer ago than I care to remember. Or if she has heard that my enduring ambition is to be an agony aunt (a reincarnation I am hoping to slide past the editor at the Christmas Drinks, leaving Mike-things-aren’t-wot-they-used-to-be-Pearce to moan about the council and gripe about Turner Contemporary, while I solve the Isle’s dilemmas). But I am ready to meet the challenge. My advice, dear Hilda, is as follows:

1. If he lives for the 18th hole, count your blessings!  You may have railed against being a golf widow for all the years he disappeared for hours whenever the kids needed collecting or your mother was coming to stay, or be used to muttering darkly about his train-spotting, fishing and time in the pub. But a good, solid, time-consuming sport or hobby partaken outside the home, will now be your saviour. Forget socks and hankies and present him on Tuesday week with a new notebook and bobble hat, tankard or gross of maggots.
2. Discourage any interest in cooking. It may sound good to have all the food prepared but it won’t end there. There is a definite syndrome displayed by Men Who Are At Home Too Much and it is encapsulated by the word “system”.  As in “I have a system when I do that” whenever he watches you chop an onion or wash the kitchen floor.  And he may be watching a lot! My friend Anna was driven to distraction by  her newly-retired husband  delivering  lectures on the correct way to both stack and empty the dishwasher until she was forced to threaten him with one of the saucepans he’d re-positioned. He’ll also use every utensil you own and expect you to wash up.
3. Give him other things to be in charge of (if these happen to be based at the end of the garden, so much the better). In our house it is the Composting and Recycling System. This has involved our son receiving in-depth training on The Correct Way to Flatten a Cardboard Box. And regular interrogations over whose transgression had led to a tin being found among the newspapers. But it gets him into the driveway.
4. Be creative when his birthday comes along. Buy him membership to the gym, evening classes or a new shed with running water and its own kitchen.
5. Get a shed of your own.
6. Leave articles lying around claiming older men are sexier if they spend several hours a day in the fresh air. Or possibly a week…
7. And those who do voluntary work live longer.
8. Encourage him to join things. Flattery can work well here. That committee/theatre group/local choir really needs someone like YOU. And  they’re crying out for aid workers in Africa…
9. Make a space of your own. Take over the spare room as your crafts or sewing room. You don’t actually have to do either. Just leave lots of material and coloured card all over the floor then, shut the door,  put your feet up and  read the paper.
10. Book yourself on a long cruise.

If YOU have a problem you’d like answering, send it to Dear Plain Jane (address below). And Hilda, don’t mention it…

Plain Jane
Isle of Thanet Gazette
Suite 1
3rd Floor
Mill Lane House
Mill Lane
Margate

Kent CT9 1JU
Editor: Rebecca Smith

Plain Jane: Playing the Party Season

As some of you may know, I write a fortnightly column – alternating with My-Mate-Mike (he who hovers just to the right of Genghis Khan and is considered a suitable antidote for what he views as my ‘dangerously-pink” tendencies) – in the Isle of Thanet Gazette. In theory this appears online on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk. In practice it frequently doesn’t. If it does, you need a degree in orienteering to find it and then, when you get there, it doesn’t bear my name.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday November 30th 2012

So we’re almost at December and the time, I gather, to start thinking festive. No, I don’t know where this year’s gone either, but if one more person tells me they finished their shopping weeks ago I shall slap her with some wet tinsel. It can only be a She. Men don’t get involved with presents at all if they can help it and when finally forced to face the inevitable, hare round on Christmas Eve, panic-buying gift packs. I sometimes wonder if I have male hormones. The joys of wafting around in a pinnie, hand-pressing cranberries and making my own mince meat, have passed me by but at least I have learnt  to keep stress levels low.

The way to approach C Day without fear and dread, is to keep one’s head firmly in a bucket and acknowledge nothing until December 23rd. When you’ve been self-employed as long as I have, with a tendency to let the entire year’s deadlines accumulate, leaving one no option but to be welded to the computer instead of counting down the retail days, the whole build-up can very easily slide past. Especially since nobody has Christmas parties any more. Or if they do, they don’t invite me.

Once upon a time, journalists wrote wearily about mantelpieces stiff with gold-edged cards (be an email these days of course) – too many to possibly ever attend all – while double pages were devoted to how to choose a little black dress and the best way to get through three weeks of champagne and canapés and still fit into it.

Now in these dark hours of austerity and gloom, it’s a buy-your-own down at the local chain pub or a memo urging staff to contribute half a goat for the third world instead. Friends who still have gainful employment with companies that turn a profit (three at the last count), tell me to thank my stars, but it is a small regret to me that never having had what you might call – and my husband does frequently – a “proper job”, I have never attended a traditional office party. I can only imagine the lecherous, bottom-patting general manager and the droopy typist who adores him. The dropped jaws when Doris from the canteen turns up in tight satin and fishnets; the sobbing after too many advocaats, the throwing up in the waste-basket, the passing round of intimate-body-parts-taken-on-photocopier hilarity and  the secretary found in the stationery cupboard doing something inappropriate with Stanley from accounts. I can’t help feeling that at  some fundamental, formative level, I have missed out.

Preparing for a previous Murder Mystery, at the Victorian Tearooms, Broadstairs
Dodgy photo by Matthew Munson

So it was perhaps with me in mind that my dear friend Lisa Payne, of the Perfectly Dreadful Murder Company, set the theme of her next Murder Mystery evening as “1970s Office Christmas Party”. I have been in a few of Lisa’s mysteries before and they are enormous fun. I am invariably cast as a cross between Barbara Windsor in EastEnders and Les Dawson in drag, allowing me to trip about in fishnets myself – with perilous heels and inadvisably short skirt – and Lisa to murmur sweetly: “and all from her own wardrobe too…” If you’re feeling festive already with no invites either, dressed up and no place to go, why not come along? Just remember ignorance is bliss for a little longer and don’t mention the  sh***ing…

Jane will be appearing with the Perfectly Dreadful Murder Company in their 70s style murder mystery on Saturday 8th December at the Sarah Thorne Memorial Theatre at 7.30 pm. Box office 0845 2626263. Prizes for best-dressed and  super-sleuth. Bring your own snacks.

Thank you Sarah Salway!

Very pleased to be featured on Sarah Salway’s website and thanks Sarah for the plug for Thursday’s event at Canterbury, Waterstones too.

Also thank you Edith for this article discovered by the splendid Morgen on her web travels.

I do like it when people say nice things about me. Would you believe they don’t always….

Plain Jane column 16 November – public speaking & event with Lesley Cookman

As some of you may know, I write a fortnightly column – alternating with My-Mate-Mike (he who hovers just to the right of Genghis Khan and is considered a suitable antidote for what he views as my ‘dangerously-pink” tendencies) – in the Isle of Thanet Gazette. In theory this appears online on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk. In practice it frequently doesn’t. If it does, you need a degree in orienteering to find it and then, when you get there, it doesn’t bear my name.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday November 16th 2012

As you may know to your cost, I do a spot of “speaking”. This has taken me to Manchester and Edinburgh, Telford and Torquay and on one best-forgotten occasion, a village hall buried so deeply in rural Wales that it took nine hours to get there (geography has never been my strong point).

But it all started, as so many things have, here in Thanet. When a lovely lady, Rusty Macintyre, invited me to address something called the Beta Ladies. One of them was married to the Hon Sec of the Omega Men (or some such) and they all had friends in the Rotary or Round Table – I never remember which is which.  (One group are youngish and like a drink; the others are oldish, like a drink and then doze off.)

Further bookings followed and I learned on the job. “I generally recommend,” said the President of a Dining Club for Gentlemen of Mature Years, when I enquired how long I should speak for, “that you keep going until half the audience are asleep”. The average age in the room was 86 and one chap had already been snoring for ten minutes when I stood up. I punctuated each anecdote with any large noise I could muster. “And then there was a knock at the door,” I’d cry, slapping the flat of my hand hard down on the table and waiting while the front row jerked awake. “And the woman next to me shrieked…” I’d add, illustrating this with an ear-piercing scream to make sure they didn’t drop off again.  It was apparently the most excitement most of them had had for years – previous speakers had held forth on “The Workings of the Local Authority” and the “History of the Rubber Stamp” (with slides) – and word spread about my ability to bring on a coronary till my oratory career was forged.

I’ve done Probus and the Over 41 Club, Retirees United; the Under 65 Society, Young Wives (they were eighty if they were a day), Old Mothers, Small Businesses and more fundraisers than you can shake a stick at. And whether the audience numbers six or a hundred some things never change. There is always  a woman who glares throughout – even if it transpires she looks like this naturally  – and another who cups her ear and says loudly to the first one “what’s she on about?” There’s a guffawing bloke who calls out “Can I heckle?” (as long as you stay awake, pal, I don’t mind what you do) and when you take questions at the end, someone who wants to tell a long, unrelated story about something that happened in 1976. The more courses they bring out, the more often your glass is filled and the longer they linger over the coffee and mints while reading announcements about the Christmas Coach Trip, the less you feel like standing up and trying to raise a laugh. Which is an inexact science to say the least – the quip that had the Bowls Club in stitches is greeted with stony silence at the Goldfish Appreciation Annual Lunch – and you have no way of knowing if the three people who’ve just left are disgusted by your last anecdote or having a bad reaction to the shellfish starter.

What I do know is that after six months of book promotion involving a more than usually-heavy schedule on the oral front, even I can get tired of the sound of my voice. Relief all round then that at the next gig, Lesley Cookman is coming too. Lesley lives in Whitstable and sets her highly-popular, Libby Sarjeant crime series here in Kent.

She and I are going to be talking about our locally-based books in Waterstones in Canterbury next Friday.

You can glare, you can ask questions, you can heckle. Just don’t fall asleep…

***

Jane and Lesley will be in conversation at Waterstones, St Margaret’s St, Canterbury at 6.30pm Thursday 22nd November. Entry free. But if you are thinking of coming along it would be great to know. Please do leave a comment or if you’re a facebooker Lesley’s made something clever here :-)

And the teapigs’ winner is….

The winner, ladies and gentlemen – picked at random* from all those who left a comment on my tea-tastings, who receives, courtesy of the good folk of teapigs, this marvellous teapig-and-mug set is ….NORMAL FOR NORFOLK!!! (Hurrah).  NFN is,  I glean from her blog,  actually called Sam Whiteoak. Send me your address, Sam, and I will pass it on to to teapigs. Thank you to every one of who who left a comment – I enjoyed them all. I’ll think up another little contest before Christmas.

* OK, I have to be honest, it was mostly random. First out of the hat was actually My Mate Mike but I put him back again. Because A) he says he  only likes PG tips B) I’ve already posted him some teapigs just to annoy him 3) He’d only say it was a fix 4) it would look like a fix – teapigs-for-the-boys – seeing as we’re on a job share and all that. 5)He still owes me lunch.

So congrats to Sam who was a worthy second and who receives this wonderful prize  for her endless excitement and joy, and don’t forget that everyone’s a winner on this blog with your BLOGGER12 discount for 15% off teapig products…

Phew.

For those who don’t like tea…

You’ll be glad to know I have found one I don’t like either. It has to be a thumbs down for the teapigs‘ exotically-named tung ting oolong tea which is billed as being “between green and black”. I should have known from that, really. Am not keen on black tea generally and green tea without flavourings tastes of compost. So needless to say it was a mega UGH at the first mouthful.

However, waste not, want not is my mantra (my mother was a war baby) and I can happily report it was perfectly salvageable by the addition of a super fruit on which Morgen has written a veritable essay right here.

Anyway, it seems most of you DO like tea – have had lots of hits since I started carrying on about it – but in case you also like marketing your books, today is the day that the podcast came out that I recorded with lovely  Sue Cook recently. You can hear How to Market Your Book – words of wisdom from Alison Baverstock, Catherine Ryan Howard and me (twittering on in an alarming manner), here.

And back to those who like the dried-leaf beverage – may I offer you Pat Wood‘s verdict on the peppermint selection…

“Had to try the Liquorice and Peppermint first: they sounded dead odd and I’m not sure I would have volunteered to buy any. But the tea was lovely. A huge surprise. Not especially liquorice-y or minty, just a warming comforting yumminess. Great winter’s day tea. Mmm. I will be looking out for these so I can buy them. Really good. And the little ‘tea temple’ made a second cup!

The ‘Tummy Tonic’ peppermint leaves made another great cuppa. Not overly peppermint, just enough to be tasty.  I drink a lot of mint teas and this one compared very well in flavour with my usual brands.  Thumbs up again.

The third tea temple was Green tea with Peppermint. I’m familiar with  the Tea Pigs Green Tea and do drink that occasionally, but never had this particular one, so that was interesting. Nice minty flavour without being over the top, plus that always welcome caffeine hit.  I don’t like my green tea very strong,  so didn’t leave it as long as they advise. Floated the bag and out again quite quickly,  so I could not only get a second cup, but it didn’t have that bitter after-taste you sometimes get with green tea.

Thank you for sending them and for letting me participate in the tasting.”

Thanks Pat!  Think we may have had enough tea for now (am still up for Champagne and Chocolate tasting – bring it on) but never say never cos I still have popcorn, rooibos and chilli flavours sitting here…

PS I almost forgot – as a special for you, my blog followers, there is a DISCOUNT no less.

Go to www.teapigs.co.uk and enter code BLOGGERS12 and you will get 15% off your order (excluding gifts and cheeky deals as these have  already been discounted).

Finally – don’t forget that anyone making a comment here will be entered into a draw to win a teapigs mug and pigs set. We’ll do the draw on Thursday at 4pm (or thereabouts) and announce the winner here shortly after.

Until then x

jasmine and tea flakes

Well of course, I’d always rather be on the fizz cos it means there’s something to celebrate (or there isn’t, but there ought to be) but right now I am rather enjoying the old teapigs still.

I wasn’t convinced about  chocolate flake tea (sweet drinks? ugh) but sometimes needs must. I turned to it when I was having one of my fasting sessions and it got me through – does actually taste like you’ve dipped some cadbury’s chocolate fingers (a small passion I devoted about a quarter of my first novel to) into the cup, which is probably because you sort of have – it has real flakes of the brown stuff in it.  And I liked it!  Which was a surprise as the tea bit is assam and I’m more of a darjeeling woman. Not sure I’d want it all the time but good as a pick-me-up when you can’t eat the real stuff.

My absolute favourite so far is Jasmine Pearls – this is really lovely – little balls of tightly wound jasmine leaves and buds in the pig bit – that unfurl in the water to produce a really aromatic, flowery, light (God, I’m rubbish at this descriptive bit – would never make a restaurant critic – hang on what do they say? “Very delicate green tea with a light, floral, refreshing, natural jasmine taste.” Oh, am not doing so badly then) flavour. I LOVED this one.

What I also love is the teapigs’

mood-o-meter

whereby you can choose tea according to your current state. It includes…

• hungover
• grumpy
• wrinkled
• podgy
• stressed

So that’s me more or less covered…

Pat from Suffolk is coming along next to give her verdict on the mint teas I posted her (you could have had some too if you’d only said.)

Cheers till then!

pure lemongrass, silver tips white, but no mint thank you…

I used to drink so much coffee it gave me blotches. In the decade that I gave it up entirely (I now have the odd cup here and there) my skin improved, the jitters went, but I had to find another way to get my caffeine fix so started drinking gallons (literally) of variously-flavoured green teas instead. I usually begin the day with a lemon one, so on Day One of the teapigs tasting extravaganza, I started off on a pure lemongrass. Think the clue’s in the name here. Lovely and lemony but yes – lemon grass only – no actual tea in there I suspect. Definitely felt a lack of the morning caffeine kick BUT being a resourceful sort, I solved this by putting it together with a “silver tips white tea” pig (in answer to those who’ve enquired, the pig is a little biodegradable “tea temple” of a bag filled with proper leaves of tea and not the powdery bits swept up off the floor) and the resultant brew was very pleasing – tho quite light and delicate. Probably not for those who like Builder’s tea you can stand a spoon up in.

Teas drunk today: pure lemon grass; silver tips white

Verdict: thumbs up

Today’s tasting notes: I really don’t like mint teas much – so if you do and would like to taste the green tea with mint, the caffeine-free peppermint leaves or the liquorice and peppermint tea pigs, email me your address, say which one you fancy, and I will post my sample to you to test out instead and contribute your verdict.

Remember that if you leave a comment here (keep ‘em clean please) you will be entered into a draw to win some teapigs of your very own together with a special teapigs mug.  Oh, the excitement….

Tea(pig) anyone?

Those nice teapig people did a spot of sponsoring at the Guildford Book Festival - where I first discovered the teabag-with-real-tea-in-it – and have now kindly sent me a selection of their “pigs” with which to tempt you. A full tasting (with full reference to their mood-o-meter) with full tasting notes, will be taking place over the next few days with a chance for YOU to win a delightful mug-and-teapigs prize. All you have to do is leave a comment here on this very blog and the winner will be picked at random (not by me!) when I have exhausted all the flavours (this could take some time). Watch, as they say – when needing to procrastinate, this space…

Plain Jane – Isle of Thanet Gazette

As some of you may know, I write a fortnightly column – alternating with My-Mate-Mike (he who hovers just to the right of Genghis Khan and is considered a suitable antidote for what he views as my ‘dangerously-pink” tendencies) – in the Isle of Thanet Gazette. In theory this appears online on http://www.thisiskent.co.uk. In practice it frequently doesn’t. If it does, you need a degree in orienteering to find it and then, when you get there, it doesn’t bear my name.

So I am going to start posting it here. Every second Friday. Or Saturday if I’ve been up late.

Here is the column from Friday 2nd November 2012.  If you don’t live in Kent it won’t all be relevant but I hope as a principle it will resonate. Grrr, I say. And more Grrrs.

Plain Jane. Isle of Thanet Gazette. Friday November 2nd 2012

I was first able to vote in the General Election of 1983 and I haven’t missed one since. I do local elections too. Those who don’t, annoy me. Especially if they then complain about any aspect of public life, ever again. Women like this are especially disappointing. Was Emily Davison trampled for nothing? Even if I genuinely couldn’t decide who I next wanted to mess things up,  I would go along to the polling station and scrawl: “you’re  as bad as each other” rather than stay at home. It’s a principle. As is my recent decision to drop my latest poll card in the bin. I am delighted that that a low turnout is predicted for the forthcoming election of a Police and Crime Commissioner for the Kent police area. Boycotting is the only way  to protest at such a deeply flawed scheme. Even if keeping away brings a small frisson of fear at who might get in. At least candidate Ann Barnes has been Chair of the Kent Police Authority and a magistrate; Piers Wauchope a criminal barrister. But Craig Mackinlay is a chartered accountant and Harriet Bronwen Yeo’s claim to fame is being “treasurer of a multi-million organisation”.

What do bean-counters know about policing? And should it really be about cost?  I don’t know much about policing either. Which is why  I do not believe I am equipped to vote on who is suitable to be “overseeing” the police operation.  What I do recognise is the unmistakable feeling of my blood running cold. “I’d be directly responsible for hiring and firing of the Kent Chief Constable” announces the creepily-named Steve Uncles in his election statement, going on to offer nothing in the way of qualifications befitting this momentous responsibility, or any personal information whatsoever except the unsettling news that he is an “English Democrat”. A little judicious Googling also reveals he has been accused of racism more than once (his pledges include “returning policing to ‘common sense’ values, treating all the people of Kent in an equal and fair manner, and not special treatment for minorities”. Which special treatment is that then, Steve? Being 37 times more likely, as recent research  suggests, to be stopped and searched if one is black?) and is not terribly popular even with fellow ED members. Is this who we want in charge of the county’s police service?

The truth is, surely, that we don’t want ANYONE with their own political agenda having that sort of power. The police are, and should be, politically neutral. The system of police authorities, which this elected commissioner business is going to replace, was based on non-political committees – including at least one magistrate – but, whatever the theory, this new set-up is likely to see prospective commissioners from one of the main parties grabbing the votes. They’ll be the ones with the full weight of the party machine (and the finance) behind them to do the canvassing. So they’ll be the ones to get in. And once that happens it is natural that they will be “overseeing” the police with an eye on their own party’s agenda. Should the unthinkable happen and one of the extreme far right – or far left – parties gain power in the future, where would that leave fair and independent enforcement of the law? And what might come next? Lay people voted in to head up other vital services? Any old body supervising the local Health Service or holding the Education authority to account? More pricey TV adverts to encourage voting in the Governor of the Bank of England? Popularly-elected judges – never mind their credentials? If we want untrained individuals wielding too much power, and playing God with our budgets there are plenty on local councils. Isn’t that enough?

Guildford Day Six

Yes a bit of a delay there but Saturday I was doing a workshop in HMP Send, Sunday I had taken to my bed with Strepsils and Lemsip (the entire population of Guildford seems to have a cold – thanks folks) and then I was waiting for photos with which to illustrate my illuminating and entirely subjective (never mind the rest of the festival – let’s just look at what I did) account of Guilford 2012.

Judy & Jane - Photo courtesy of James Davies

Monday brought Judy Finnigan at lunchtime – she was great and Richard came too – talking about her intriguing and atmospheric debut novel Eloise. We did forty minutes of chat and then took questions. Mindful of those unable to journey to Guildford, I had invited contributions via Twitter. @missdaisyfrost obliged with a deeply meaningful, profound and erudite enquiry. “How hairy is Richard’s back?” I can confirm to all of you worried about such matters that the answer, straight from Judy’s mouth, is not at all. That’s a relief.

Next up was Kay Burley – she had a cold too. But had had the good sense to come via the chemist. We discovered that a combination of Actifed tablets and white wine will deal with most symptoms or at least render one past caring. I’m not sure what we talked about now –  I expect her new novel, the entertaining Betrayal, got a mention – but we enjoyed it anyway. I won’t include a photo cos streaming eyes and red noses are not a good look.

The evening saw Jenny Eclair who nearly went into meltdown at all the sore throats about the place – she is on tour with her new show Eclairious and needs her vocal chords! Jenny was her usual hilarious self.  She has the wonderful gift of being able to get away with pretty much anything – only she could render the good ladies of Guildford helpless with laughter over a gag about pubic hair – and her new novel Life, Death and Vanilla Slices is well worth a read. My own review here (you’ll need to scroll down a bit).

David and Jane – Photo courtesy of George Parkes

And now I’ll break the rules and talk about someone else other than me and tell you that following us were Kathy Lette and Sandy Toksvig discussing Kathy’s new book The Boy Who Fell to Earth (sweet, sharp, funny, sad, endlessly touching). They were both hysterically funny too. Tho’ as David Nobbs pointed out, the whole evening seemed revolve around menopause and female bodily functions. (Luckily, as he also added, he is not at all squeamish)

He is tho, very, very entertaining. He didn’t really need me at all this morning but I felt  privileged to be sitting there and croaked out the odd question. We talked about his latest tome The Fall and Rise of Gordon Coppinger - a work of bloody genius if I might say so –  his most famous creation, Reggie Perrin, and his long career writing comedy. God Bless Mr Nobbs.

Tomorrow is my last day at the festival and I am hosting a panel of erotic writers (or should that be writers of eroticism??), including Hazel Cushion, MD of Xcite Books – the UK’s largest publisher of steamy tomes. Still time to get a ticket. 9pm (after the watershed) in the cafe bar at the Electric Theatre.

More of that in due course…

Guildford Day Two

The end of the second day of Guildford Book Festival and tonight was Peter James and Ann Cleeves. Fab interviewees both – and both with great news to share. Ann has been inducted into the Crime Writers Association Hall of Fame (I’m not entirely sure what this involves but I am deeply impressed) and Peter has knocked Fifty Shades off the top of the Bestsellers List. Respect!  Peter is,  of course, extremely shy and retiring (ho de ho) but I managed to coax a few anecdotes out of him. I’d never met Ann before but thought she was really lovely – how could she not be having created DI Vera Stanhope (a new series being filmed right now folks! If you love Brenda Blethyn – I do – don’t miss it). And that’s all I can muster right now cos it’s been a long day and tomorrow I’m off to HMP Send (not permanently).

But lots more to come at Guildford – On Monday I interview Judy Finnigan, Kay Burley and Jenny Eclair. Tuesday brings David Nobbs  - hilarious creator of Reggie Perrin. Do roll up if you possibly can.
xx till then

PS yes I did learn where I’ve been going wrong on the Victoria Sponge front with lovely Rachel Allen and Jim N was most entertaining…

PPS Photo courtesy of Morgen (thanks Love!!! )

And off to Guildford….

It’s begun – I am here in my Guildford for my annual stint in the interviewing chair and. as always, thrilled at the prospect. Last night was the launch do at the fab Radisson Hotel where I did an “in conversation with Kay Burley“, the country’s longest-serving news anchor – she’s been with Sky News since the start – who’s great fun.  (Her books are too – I’m going to be discussing those with her on Monday!). The audience loved her. I love seeing her too and getting the gossip! I do hope she publishes a scandalous diary when she’s in her dotage…

Today I am off to the Electric Theatre to talk to Rachel Allen about her new book CAKE (I am hoping to finally learn how to turn out a sponge that is not either flat or lopsided) and this evening I get to introduce James Naughtie who will be talking about The New Elizabethans. I am addicted to Radio Four so this is an honour indeed. I’ll let you know how sexy he is later…

Guildford Book Festival is wonderful (potential sponsors please note!). It boasts terrific venues, big names, truly great writers. And deserves wider fame. If you are anywhere within striking distance, get yourselves along. And come and say hello if you do! Mad dash now but further bulletins in due course….

Back from Chez Castillon….

I came back on Saturday, in fact, but it took  the rest of the weekend to sort the faint air of bachelor pad – why don’t men notice dead flowers or demonstrate  that  same technical expertise with which they  handle the iphone or Playstation, to get to grips with the washing machine? – and then there were the 497 emails to deal with, three deadlines and no chocolate in the house. Yes, I should have answered the emails while en France but there really wasn’t a spare minute between teaching, eating a long lunch, more teaching, walking off the long lunch, talking a lot, and suddenly finding it was G&T time…

It was my second visit but my first one as a tutor so thanks to Jo, Betty, Brenda, Julie and Sally, my inaugural  students for making it a great baptism of fire (that’ll teach me to say “interrupt as much as you like”  :-)) and even greater fun. Lovely Katie Fforde came too with her husband Desmond and Captain Catherine “Brace Up” Jones (aka @LaceKate) was also on hand to route march me in the evenings and make me laugh so much my stomach muscles hurt.

Janie and Mickey who run the gaff were their usual wonderful selves – far be it from them to let a glass be empty – and Rory the dog has stopped chewing things. A result all round. Oh and David Headley  (the literary agent and bookseller – googling this name throws up some interesting options) came for a couple of days too. See his twitter  - bless ‘im.

So all in all, a good time was had by all and I am going back in April. Email me or visit www.chez-castillon.com if you want to come too…

Slacker

Am all behind on this blogging lark – as I am on so many things – but I have a small array of excuses. Been away in Manchester doing workshops for Woman’s Weekly at their live show and  London where I’ve been recording a podcast with lovely Sue Cook of Write Lines as part of National Short Story Week.  As I had one one foot out of the hotel door, when writing this, clever Morgen is going to post this up and do the twiddly bits as she so often does and I’ve been writing things for other people’s blogs too. Thank you Vanessa O’Loughlin for this one.

I shall try to do better once I get to France – still one last place left. Remember the ever-wonderful Katie Fforde is coming too – and hot off the press there’ll be a session with agent David Headley – so if you know anyone…

In the meantime I leave you with my latest piece of fan mail, left on Thanetonline blog and relating to the Isle of Thanet Gazette where I am one of the two  mentioned – guess which?  ”When will they appoint a professional editor and sack those two whinging columnists … the alcoholic obsessed novelist and the grumpy old git?” (I presume he means “alcohol-obsessed” but still entertaining all the same )

More soon…. xx

 

If it’s good enough for Harry….

Of course he was pictured in the Sun with his kit off and I’ve only made Writers’ Forum (and am still wearing a laptop)  but it I’m just thinking that  if I get a fraction of the hits that the 3rd In Line got when he appeared Online in the altogether, it could mean “going viral” (in the eager-readers-all-around-the-world-pressing-that-forward-button, rather than the antibiotic sense) and can only be good for my “career” . (The rather grand term I occasionally use when not sure how best to describe the motley collection of writing jobs I undertake in a vain attempt to earn a crust.)

The funny thing is that while I  remember answering a lot of questions for Anita Loughrey who so kindly set up this interview,  I have no recollection of sending her the photo. I can only imagine wine had been taken!

But now it’s “out there” I can tell you the painting is by Brian Homewood  and when I get near a scanner I’ll post the tale of how it all came about (as told to Woman’s Weekly). In the meantime, clever Morgen – blog mistress extraordinaire – is going to post this for me from the student kitchen at the NAWG Festival while I get my frock on before dinner (I am the after-dinner speaker – God help ‘em – so  had better not wear tracksuit bottoms) and Barry (I trust!) gets the bloody wine open…

A quickie for Thanetians

Or anyone within distance of. Just flagging up tomorrow’s excitement – RAMSGATE’S GOT WRITING TALENT – the annual literary bunfight that could win you lunch with ME (plus a couple of other local good eggs) and an intro to a literary agent. For more details see HERE (bloody peculiar photo I grant you) or read my column in today’s Isle of Thanet Gazette (to which there ought to be a web link but to which there usually isn’t – don’t get me started).

Anyway it’s a bit of fun with a great prize and a workshop from me – all for a tenner. Comment below if you want any more details. Happy Friday! jxx

Room for a little one…

Room, indeed, for two little ones – or even two quite big ones (bedroom sizes generous).

Due to a cancellation, there are now a couple of places available at the fabulous Chez Castillon, where I am teaching “Is there a book in you?” in October. And I can’t tell you how lovely it is! (The place, not necessarily the tome lurking within, but we can work on that). Full details here.

The food is fab, the wine flows, the sun shines and I’ll be there (see footnote)… What’s not to like?

My entirely impartial verdict:

˜˜˜˜˜˜Worth selling your body or breaking  the piggy bank for. 

footnote 1  and the lovely Katie Fforde will be there too. Your chance to share a dinner table  with a mega-selling novelist. We might even persuade her to sing. See here.

Hot tips for Writers – am in the spotlight with Writer’s Choice

The nice people at Writer’s Choice have put me in their ‘spotlight’. Thank you PDR!

If there’s nothing much on TV, you can read it here: Interview with Jane Wenham-Jones.

Hot tips for writers everywhere….

(NB wasn’t my idea to add salt – was dead serious. Esp about number 10 )

Greetings from (not-so) sunny Swanwick…

Actually it has been sunny but just happens to be p***ing down as I type.

I am here at the long-running Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in Derbyshire where I am teaching  ”Truth is stranger than…” which, as the  astute among you will infer, is a four-part course on writing non-fiction. No-one has walked out or fallen asleep yet. (The week, as they say, is still young).

In the meantime, I have another freebie for you. Perfect Alibis – my second novel which landed me on daytime TV and various you-will-burn-in-hell type Biblical tracts on my doormat – is available for nowt until Saturday. Download onto your kindle, or (with free Kindle app from Amazon) your ipad, PC or Mac… and please  tell all your friends.

Click on the cover, or these links to go to the Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com stores…

More when I return to what I hope WILL be sunny Broadstairs. Back Friday in time to catch the last night of Folk Week.

Mine’s not a pint but I might manage half a strawberry cider from The Chapel. Further details of that little gem another time…

Feast or famine

So who saw the Horizon programme on Monday about fasting? Review of it here. Seems that arranging your life in alternate “feed” and “fast” days not only helps you lose weight (well it would, wouldn’t it) but aid longevity and gives you a fine set of blood results to boot. I am going to try it. As I have just completed 351 Feed days, today I am going to Fast. As a shift-the-lard method it appeals to me psychologically cos 1) you can stand pretty much anything if it only lasts 24 hours, 2) I do love a quick fix 3) I can feel virtuous while all around me others are stuffing their faces and getting heart disease 4) I am at the upper end of my acceptable fat zone

I am telling YOU so I have to stick to it and not cave in at 6pm and hit the wine and crisps.

In fact, one doesn’t have to totally fast – on the TV Michael Mosley had a little soup thing in the evening. I have found an Ainsley Harriott cuppa soup lurking at the back of the larder that claims to be leek. It has a sell-by of October 2008 but I expect by this evening I’ll be past caring. So far it is  eleven o’clock this morning and I am not being “a right bitch” as  confidently predicted by my son. I am smiling in a sublime (and slightly manic) fashion and drinking lots of green tea….

Please feel free to send encouragement, bracing words, etc (and possibly a box of Kettle chips I can mainline tomorrow).

Dinner tonight…..

And the winner is…

Malcolm Chisholm gets a signed copy of PRIME TIME in the books-for-comments draw. Email me your address Malcolm and the novel shall be yours. Winner picked at random by a friend by text. I’ll be honest – he picked Tony’s number first and I knew he would cos  Tony’s already bought every single one of my books – some of them twice (God Bless Tony!). So I thought we’d have two winners and asked him to choose again. Tony I am going to send you a book for a friend. Also email me please and say if you’d like to receive it direct or nominate someone to get a surprise through the post? Right that’s enough displacement for today. Back to the blank screen for me….

Have a happy Monday. Raining here. Now there’s a surprise….